<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Things With Feathers by Anonymous</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29800158">Things With Feathers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aziraphale and Crowley's Bodyswap (Good Omens), Corporal Punishment, Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Torture, Whump, Wingfic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:27:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,227</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29800158</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Aziraphale can be executed, he must be made an example of. Crowley endures it for him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>98</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Good Omens Kink Meme Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Crowley gave Aziraphale the run down as best he could. He didn’t want to scare him, but he also didn’t want him to go into Hell unprepared and so erred on the side of more detail being better: how much of being roughed up would be considered too much, and when it would become something he could invoke the wrath of Beelzebub about, what sort of reactions they would be expecting from him, and the consequences of not giving them what they want.<br/>
<br/>
Looking at his face afterwards, he thought he’d probably made a mistake. Aziraphale didn’t look scared. Instead, his face looked utterly blank, which was worse.<br/>
<br/>
“This is our best shot at survival,” Crowley said. “I wouldn’t even bring it up if I didn’t think it would save your life- <em>both</em> our lives.”<br/>
<br/>
“I... know,” Aziraphale said. He tried to knock back his drink, missed, splashed port wine all over his suit, and then miracled it away without so much as disappointed huff.<br/>
<br/>
He put down his glass without refilling it. Crowley stared.<br/>
<br/>
“I know, and I agree, I just- you should know. There’s- well, there’s a good chance that Heaven will have a bit more in store for you.”<br/>
<br/>
“More,” Crowley said flatly.<br/>
<br/>
“Yes,” Aziraphale agreed. “More.”<br/>
<br/>
He was right. Heaven did have more in store for Aziraphale, and worse too.<br/>
<br/>
The chains were gold, and deceptively delicate-looking. They were attached to cuffs that cut into his wrists and hooks that dug in around his pinion joint, holding his wings open to their full span without any chance of dislodging them. They would support his weight if his legs went out. Aziraphale had said. He would know. It was his wrist and wings and legs and body being put through it, as had been done before. It was just that Crowley had to wear it for this last time.<br/>
<br/>
There was a tittering noise from behind him, and then someone grabbed ahold of one of his remaining primaries and <em>yanked</em>. Crowley let out a bellow of pain.<br/>
<br/>
<em>They’ll expect some reaction. Trying to be stoic about it will only make them angry. Shout or yell- no words, definitely no cursing or threatening. I try not to cry, but I don’t generally succeed. </em><br/>
<br/>
More blood dripped down his wings. There was beginning to be enough of it spilling out now to pool on the floor. Soon it might be enough to cause him to slip, the floor no longer holding enough purchase for Aziraphale’s bare toes.<br/>
<br/>
<em>They’ll ask you to undress. I know you’re not going to want to, but if you could just miracle my clothing off and tuck it into a corner I’d appreciate it. I don’t actually own any other clothes, as of right now.</em><br/>
<br/>
Aziraphale’s body was naked. He could see it, if he looked down: the soft swell of his stomach with its golden stretch marks, the thickness of his calves just barely peeking out when he tried to flinch forward, a futile instinct to escape the pain that the movement only worsened. He couldn’t see it if he looked forward. The chains stretched before a window overlooking the splendor of Heaven and all the buildings they’d copied from the humans they derided. It was not an Earthly window: there was no reflection, no way to see what was coming behind him. Sometimes he could guess from the noises behind him, but this was a busy area of Heaven, made busier by gawkers.<br/>
<br/>
A hand ran through the feathers of his left wing. Crowley tensed and tried to brace himself. It didn’t do much when the angel suddenly closed their fist and pulled out a handful of feathers. He screamed again, and panted, and tried to hold himself back from flinching at the sound of blood splattering on the floor.<br/>
<br/>
There shouldn’t be this much blood, really. Feathers didn’t normally bleed unless they were new. Aziraphale might have been in the midst of a molt. Either that, or this had happened often enough, and recently enough, that he had new feathers coming in anyway. It was hard to tell: he hadn’t thought to ask, last night, and Aziraphale’s wings were always a bit scraggly-looking.<br/>
<br/>
That should have been a clue right there. Aziraphale vacillated between being at the cutting edge of fashion and pretending it didn’t exist every other century or so, but he always took care of his appearance: maintained his clothes to be clean and crisply pressed, had standing appointments with the barber and the manicurist and whoever else was available at the time. His wings, perpetually rumpled and with feathers all askew, just didn’t <em>fit</em>, and Crowley really should have wondered why that was.<br/>
<br/>
He hadn’t. He hadn’t, and all the while Aziraphale had been going through this, and he hadn’t known.<br/>
<br/>
<em>Normally it’s just pulling. There’s a set time you have to remain hanging, and then they let you go. I don’t think they’ll be quite so lenient, this time. There will likely be... implements. You know the kind. You remember when public floggings and pillories were the punishments de rigueur down here.</em><br/>
<br/>
He did. It hadn’t been so long ago, in the grand scheme of things, as far as the United Kingdom was concerned, at least. In other parts of the world it was still an ongoing thing, as it was in Heaven, apparently.<br/>
<br/>
There had been a cane first, or something like that: it nearly broke his left wing. Then there were stones, conjured by a miracle, pelting into him from behind, and then disappearing before they could touch the floor. But mostly, so far, it had just been plucking, which was more than bad enough.<br/>
<br/>
There was a lull. Angels continued to go on their way past him, heard but unseen, but no one was paying him any particular attention. Crowley tried to breathe, grimacing as bruises on his ribs made themselves known. His wings twitched in his peripheral vision.<br/>
<br/>
The blood on the floor vanished, and footsteps approached, the only sound in amongst a sudden anticipatory hush.<br/>
<br/>
“Geez, Aziraphale, you didn’t even manage to lose the gut.” The end of something long and hard- the handle of a whip?- prodded against his stomach before being withdrawn, too quickly for Crowley to try to parse the details. “You always look like such a mess.”<br/>
<br/>
That would be Gabriel. Aziraphale had warned him about the Archangel too.<br/>
<br/>
<em>Gabriel likes to make a production out of it. He’ll taunt you, and definitely bring something to hurt your wings with, and he’ll draw a crowd, too.</em><br/>
<br/>
“Nothing to say to that?” Gabriel challenged. “Not even an apology?”<br/>
<br/>
Gabriel was off to his side and behind him, obscured by his wings. He wouldn’t be able to see Crowley much better than Crowley could see him. He lifted his chin and looked resolutely ahead in his best impression of Aziraphale’s most defiant expression anyway.<br/>
<br/>
Gabriel clearly recognized it. He backed away with a wordless snarl, and then there was a loud crack and feelings like fire cutting down his wing. More blood spilled out onto the floor- he’d been right, it was a whip.<br/>
<br/>
That was existence for some time, then. The whip fell against his wings again and again, and it hurt so much that there wasn’t much room for anything else. Gabriel was continuing to speak, pausing every few blows to say something he clearly thought was clever: Crowley couldn’t focus well enough to make out the words, but he doubted very much that they were anything worth listening to anyway.<br/>
<br/>
Eventually, Gabriel stopped- stopped whipping, stopped speaking. If he made some kind of parting shot before going it didn’t register. Crowley stood there in the aftermath, blood pooling at his feet, his hands grown numb above his head.<br/>
<br/>
Time passed. A few more feathers were plucked, those that remained on his wingtips. The angels didn’t seem to want to get any closer to him. Probably, they didn’t want to get blood on their shoes. Getting it off again was probably a frivolous miracle, the likes of which were reserved for Archangels and such. Crowley tried not to flinch away at it. He could feel that he’d flinched too much when Gabriel had been whipping him: the hooks had only dug more deeply into his wings, and he didn’t want to drive them in further.<br/>
<br/>
Time passed. Crowley stood, and he breathed, and eventually there was a snap. The chains abruptly withdrew, leaving him to collapse onto the suddenly dry floor.<br/>
<br/>
“Get up,” Uriel said, her tone harsh. “It’s time.”<br/>
<br/>
Crowley nearly obeyed her unthinkingly, out of his own shock and Aziraphale’s muscle memory, before he remembered: Aziraphale wanted his clothes.<br/>
<br/>
“Just let me get dressed first,” he said, lifting his chin a bit.<br/>
<br/>
Uriel narrowed her eyes. “Be quick about it.”<br/>
<br/>
Crowley snuck looks at the crowd of angels assembled behind her as he dressed. Quite a few of them looked anticipatory, gleeful, like they were just having a grand old time. But a few of them had their hands clasped tightly on the shoulders and napes of other angels, ones who were ashen-faced with fear and misery, and behind them still more angels hurried by, shoulders hunched and faces turned away.<br/>
<br/>
It was more or less how beings in Hell reacted to a public flogging. He wasn’t sure why that surprised him, but it did.<br/>
<br/>
<em>They’ll want to make an example of you. Of me, I mean. So no one else...</em><br/>
<br/>
He supposed he hadn’t really thought that there were enough people in Heaven who were afraid, and who knew they were afraid, to foment any discontent that needed to be nipped in the bud. It was oddly comforting to realize that he’d been wrong about that.<br/>
<br/>
He put his wings away and sat down on the wheelchair Uriel had brought for him. Ropes bound him to it, and then they were off, towards what was meant to be Aziraphale’s death.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They didn’t talk about it for some weeks after- which was not long, in the grand scheme of eternity. All things considered, perhaps it was more strange that they spoke about it at all.<br/><br/>But there came a blustery autumn night when they sat inside and enjoyed the reconstituted contents of Aziraphale’s wine cellar, and Aziraphale asked Crowley if he wouldn’t mind giving his wings a good grooming.<br/><br/>“Yeah, of course,” Crowley said. He didn’t ask if Aziraphale was sure, which he appreciated. He was sure. He’d given this a great deal of thought, as a matter of fact.<br/><br/>Aziraphale called forth his wings. Crowley had healed them before they’d switched back, of course, as much as he could, same as Aziraphale had done with the crack on Crowley’s head and the assortment of bruises he’d gotten on the way to trial. They were no longer painful, his wings, but there was nothing to be done for the feathers but wait for them to grow back in. After several weeks, the process was nearly complete.<br/><br/>It was not the fullest spread of plumage he’d ever had, of course, but it was the first time he’d believed that he would be able to keep all these feathers until they molted. He had rarely had the opportunity before- he’s made too many mistakes, behaved too badly, and otherwise brought punishment down on himself. That was what he kept telling himself about it, anyway, while it was still happening. Things looked a bit different now.<br/><br/>“Thank you,” Crowley told him. “Seriously, your wings are such a mess, it’s been driving me spare.”<br/><br/><em>You’re welcome</em>, he meant to say. “I did it on purpose,” he said instead.<br/><br/>Crowley hesitated “There are easier ways to get under my skin, angel,” he said lightly, an offer to avoid that conversation if he so wished.<br/><br/>Part of Aziraphale did so wish, but not the larger part. “When Heaven would- in between bouts, you know. You’re supposed to set things to rights, once they’re done, feathers very much included. But I stopped, some time around Rome. There didn’t seem to be much point. I was only going to be punished again, and have all that hard work ruined.”<br/><br/>Crowley said nothing for a moment. His fingers, nimble and gentle, continued to work on his wings.<br/><br/>“It rather drove Gabriel around the twist too,” Aziraphale confessed, and felt the warm huff of Crowley’s breath on his neck as the demon laughed. “But what was he going to do? Insist that I groom myself before things got started? That would have eaten into his schedule. And besides, it wasn’t a rule, per se, just an expectation.”<br/><br/>“That’s my bastard angel,” Crowley said fondly.<br/><br/>“I tried my worst,” Aziraphale replied. “So far as I felt I was able, at least.”<br/><br/>“All anyone can ask you to do, angel.”<br/><br/>Crowley worked quickly. It wasn’t long before the floor was littered with feathers and Aziraphale’s wings felt significantly lighter.<br/><br/>“Here,” Crowley said, snapping. A large mirror appeared before them. “Have a look.”<br/><br/>Aziraphale had a look. Though far from pristine- he doubted very much that pristine was possible at this stage- his wings looked better than they had in ages.<br/><br/>And he was never going to have to allow anyone to touch them again, if he didn’t want.<br/><br/>“Thank you,” he said softly. “Thank you, Crowley.”</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>